


can't help falling in love

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gossip Girl Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:52:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: When you say you don’t want to regret, that’s right when you end up regretting things over again.





	can't help falling in love

This isn’t a party per se. Everyone has to pay for their own drinks, even if food’s being passed around and snatched off friends’ and friends’ friends’ plates, even though you need to be on the list to get into the rooftop bar. Alex isn’t quite sure who had put this together; she’d just gotten a text that someone was holding a party there so did she want to come. She’d lied and said yes, and it had seemed a worse idea on the way, the smell of hot garbage engulfing her and the rotten puddles on the streets reminders of the previous night’s thunderstorm. The sky is hazy but clearer, maybe; going up into it should only make it worse, but Alex had gone up the four flights of winding stairs and emerged into the open air anyway. Thirty minutes in and sweat is sticking her hair to her cheeks and neck; her makeup is melting off her face and she’s never going to be able to wear this fucking Givenchy dress again for the pit stains. 

At first the beer she’d gotten had been refreshing, crips and light and cool; it now sits in the half-full glass lukewarm. Alex places it on the edge of an empty table; all the chairs have been taken and crammed around other tables, friends tightly squished next to friends, cocktail ice melted in a clear layer on top of their drink, sweat sticking bare arms together, this year’s tans and tattoos showing through. 

There’s no theme to the party but it feels a little stale, straw wrappers crunching under Alex’s heels. The summer is over too soon, too soon and nothing done, as if something had slipped away through her fingers without her getting a good grip on it. It’s like everyone’s still on a school schedule even though most of them are done with that and the ones that aren’t don’t have kids old enough to be in school, anyway. A facsimile of careless youth recaptured--they have enough in fallback money and consolidated privilege that they don’t have to worry about much. Adulthood for them is managing, coasting, partying, but there are still no guarantees. There’s a parallel between all of this, but Alex is already too buzzed to fully connect it, like fumbling the clasp on her own bracelet trying to get it off dry mouth drunk at two in the morning. She’s not totally wasted right now, but the heat and the beer and the shots shoved into her hand when she’d entered are getting to her just a little bit.

Alex hasn’t really talked with anyone, only small exchanges about the shitty weather and claiming her summer was wonderful and throwing a fake laugh in here and there. She chokes back the last of her latest as she walks over toward the bar again. Something cold and alcoholic ought to be a distraction from all of this nothing, but the thought’s not good enough for something else to distract her from it. A flash of glass or gemstone in Alex’s eye from the right, probably a watch. Again, unintentional, and then the watch is hidden by a pinstriped sleeve. Perfectly tailored, Brooks Brothers. Sitting on a barstool, drink in hand, is Masako. It’s so fucking hot that she ought to have sweat stains streaking down her back like an old man lugging his grocery cart up the subway steps, but she looks impeccable. Maybe a little sweat at her hairline, slight flush on her cheeks, but that could be the alcohol. The barstool next to Masako is empty; it won’t be for long. Someone else will come, to grab a spot at the bar or to hit on Masako or both, and since Alex doesn’t feel like tasting regret today she weaves through the crowd and sits down, ensuring that it’s not someone else.

“Hey, stranger,” she says to Masako.

Masako cocks an eyebrow, and tilts her drink back in her hand. Double vodka martini, unless Alex knows Masako less than she thinks. Habits are difficult to break, though, and if Masako’s sitting by the bar in a suit in the heat with the same clip holding her hair back and her makeup done the same, Alex is willing to bet a decent-sized chunk of cash on the contents of her drink being the same. The bartender passes, wiping the table again, and Alex leans in.

“Pitcher of sangria, two glasses, please.”

“Sure.”

Alex hands him a fifty before he goes, saves her the trouble of digging in her clutch for cash or a card after she’s had a few more drinks. Sangria here’s too expensive for what it is, heavy and sour like a sinking hot air balloon, but Alex can afford it.

“Should I stay and call you a cab?”

“Half of it’s for you.”

“I don’t like sangria,” says Masako, taking another sip of her martini, the empty toothpick still stuck in the glass brushing her nose.

The first time they’d split a pitcher, she’d said the same thing. A glass and a half in each, she was still grumbling about how hard liquor was better (but, that being from Akita, sake was the true king, but it needed to be enjoyed the right way, and Alex had then asked her about sake sangria and received the most horrified look she’d ever seen, and damn it, why hadn’t high-def camera phones been a thing back then, why hadn’t she even gotten out her two-megapixel Razr and taken a shot anyway). Alex had then told the slightly-tangential tale of the summer she’d tried to get herself hooked on dirty martinis that were half olive brine and a third vermouth, and that had nearly made Masako laugh. She’d caught herself just in time and turned it into a half-hiccup, and Alex had called her a lush and pressed her toes to Masako’s ankle under the table until she’d noticed. 

Their feet feel five hundred kilometers apart now, each pair on its own footrest (Masako’s, in Italian-looking leather-sole loafers--Armani? Prada?--are toeing the metal; Alex’s Louboutins are firmly wedged on top. She’s probably seven or eight inches taller than Masako in these. She might have to bend down to kiss her, pull her own loose hair away from her face. 

“Try this,” Alex says, as the bartender returns.

The pitcher is glass with smooth sides, like the place is trying too hard to show it’s not a dive bar, but this is just calling attention to the similarity. Any place that serves alcohol several servings in one is a place Alex’s father would consider not classy enough, just like any place that serves beer straight from the can or leaves trailing zeroes on the prices. What the hell’s so classy about getting day-drunk in Manhattan and pretending it’s June when it’s really September and you can’t find the words to say to your ex? 

Masako sighs, her lips parting. They look wet and cool; she pours them both glasses, each two-thirds full, and raises hers in a wordless toast. Alex picks up the other and raises it to touch Masako’s. The clink of glass on glass is silent and almost lost in the blare of shitty dance-pop and the chatter of guests. Masako’s gaze is steady on Alex’s. 

It doesn’t go down too easy, the cold sourness flooding Alex’s veins like a harsh light. She wants to reach out and put her hand on Masako’s knee. She hasn’t said anything; her plan of smoothly flirting has evaporated into the clogged air, if it had ever materialized in her mind beyond “go up look pretty say something”. Masako chases her own small sip with more of her martini. The ice rattles as she sets it down, and she thumbs the rim. A little bit of moisture clings to her upper lip. This summer wasn’t long enough to experience as summer, but it also wasn’t long enough to learn how to not want Masako like this. They’ve never been on-again, off-again; there was very little drama or societal tension driving them apart. They’ve never hooked up.  The falling-out was slow, stress fractures hammered over again, but Alex had never stopped wanting Masako, and part of why she’d held on as long as she did without doing more to fix things. 

When you say you don’t want to regret, that’s right when you end up regretting things over again. Alex chases the bitterness with the rest of her sangria; warmed up a few degrees and sitting in a puddle of its own condensation it tastes better. 

“I’ll call my own cab.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Masako’s hand catches Alex’s under the bar. 

**Author's Note:**

> im trying to write these two in something unequivocally happy i just end up in a Mood every time i wanna write them orz


End file.
